Spring is Coming?

It is hard to imagine that spring will come.  Here’s the flooding at our place after all the snow melted.  We have had ravaging winds and serious rain here, and the flood waters come down from the development above us.  In the background of this photo you can see a government worker’s car (on a Saturday!).  The flooding was so bad the rams are actually using their shelter.  They were thrilled to move into the barn where they wait for the rains to slow down.

But there is one sign of spring coming.  My shearing day is scheduled!  It is Monday, March 5th.  Anyone who would like to help out please let me know.  There is free wool for those who help.  Also anyone who would like to reserve a fleece, please let me know.

Here’s the Mica hat I finished last night.  It is made out of fur from my dog who was a mutt but had the nicest golden fiber.  I carded, spun, washed and then knit the Odessa hat with it.  Now I am going to make mittens, Feathercrest by Jared Flood.  The pattern is in my Christmas present book, Knit Real Shetland.  It will not be Shetland fiber this time but should match the hat well.

Here’s our forecast (I could use a warm hat):

Currently 50 °F Mostly Cloudy Humidity: 85% Wind: 8 mph from the South Visibility: 10.0 miles Dew Point: 46 °F Precipitation: 100% chance of rain Air Quality: Good Pressure: 29.67 in UV: 0 Today 43° | 36° Thursday 41° | 29° Friday 40° | 27° Saturday 43° | 31° Sunday 45° | 34°   Updated: 7:42 PM PST on January 24, 2012

** Severe weather warnings ** High Wind Warning

Winter Wonderland Not!

This iron fence demonstrated how sticky this snow has been.  The horizontal bar on this fence is about 1 cm in width.  We received about 3 more inches of snow this morning, but it was lighter flakes so didn’t stick to things but does add weight and depth (now 13″) to everything.  Here’s our cat Chloe weathering the storm.

This cold weather (20 degrees this morning) is hard on the skinny old animals.  One of our older ringneck pheasant hens died.  Cody (our old skinny buck) on the first day of this nonsense became so weak he couldn’t walk.  I had to load him into our hay cart and move him to the barn.  Fortunately in a way since there is no way to use a cart now.  Plus I moved the other bucks and their guard llamas closer to barn so feeding and watering them is a lot easier now.  Here’s all three guard llamas together for the first time, waiting for Tom to feed them.

And here’s Cody.  He initially perked up with some feed and supplements in the relative warmth of the barn but this morning was shivering and not interested in eating.  So now he has a cashmere sweater (that no longer fits me).  I figured he would prefer cashmere to sheep’s wool.  Now he is not longer shivering and eating hay again.

This is Tom sweeping off the lower portions of the barn roof.  Notice the peacock on the top of the pole over the pheasant pen.  Not sure why he is choosing to hang out up there as opposed to in the barn.

So now we are done slogging through our animal and snow chores.  It is hard work carrying feed and buckets of water through through this nasty white stuff.  We are now tired and sore.  Fortunately the snow has stopped for now, and the predicted windstorm has not affected us yet.  So we will take it easy until the next storm hits.  I will make mulled wine from our homemade wine supply.  Tom brought home this used dutch oven the other day.  I have already made a great batch of Provencal Beef Stew with it.  Maybe another batch of stew is in order.

Walking Round In Womens Underwear

So I am singing this song to myself (to the tune of Winter Wonderland) this morning while I walk around in a snowstorm trying to save our structures from collapse.  It is snowing HARD here, and it has only just begun.

You can see how much this thick heavy snow is sticking to the tree branches.

Above is our poor Christmas tree that we have not gotten around to planting yet.  Then it is accumlating on our roofs.  Here is the overhanging snow from our garage’s roof.

Fortunately for us, I guess, the windstorm took out our tarp shelter that normally we have to brush the heavy snow off of to keep it from collapsing.  We also replaced the center portion of our barn roof with a higher pitched roof so hopefully the snow will slide off.  Plus there are much better supports to keep it from collapsing.  So far we have not been brushing off the barn roof like we usually get to do during a snow storm.

But then there is still the netting over the pheasant pen.  This thick snow clings to the netting and weighs it down.

We have to whack the snow off, brush it to get more snow off and push the larger snow balls off the edge.  It is a lot of very cold work.  Tom did it all last night, and I am doing it this morning while he is off getting supplies for us.  Here’s an example of the netting after my treatment.

You will notice that the netting has ripped off the support pole because of the weight of the snow.  This is despite Tom’s overnight efforts to get the weight off of it.  And below is a photo of the weighted down netting ripping the fascia off the barn and taking the gutters with it.

The only nice thing I saw was the sheep again demonstrating the amazing insulating quality of wool.

Send good thoughts our way as we battle to keep our farm intact as the forecast calls for a lot more of this nasty heavy snow.